Read More

Dr Kelleher said: “Last week or this week will be the peak. There’s been just been a little bit of an increase this week - nowhere near the same degree of upsurge we’ve seen in the previous two or three weeks.

“So, this period (winter) we’ve had 1,000 people hospitalised that we know and there has been around 50 admitted to Intensive Care Units (ICU) so far. They’ll keep on going up.

"The main virus fuelling the outbreak is Influenza B (65% of all cases), which is not covered by the flu vaccine, while the next most prominent flu virus is the AH3N2 or the so-called Aussie flu (35% of all cases).

"It is expected that the death-count will continue to multiply with between 60 and 110 deaths anticipated before the end of the winter season".